How much vacation do you take?

[Glacier]

Glacier, you have quite a good deal there, compared to many others - good for you! Hope you'll have a wonderful vacation with your family! When you go in September, you should consider Dominican Republic... great beaches, friendly people and it's cheap.

Sick days? Many of you talk about sick days. So you have a certain amount of sick days to use in a year? What if you are sick for more days? Don't you get paid anything, or do you have use your vacation days, then?

The benefit plan has been a deciding factor in staying at my job several times! I've looked at the Dominican Republic but it's right in the middle of the hurricane belt and September is the height of hurricane season. Stuart has issues with all inclusive resorts too and getting to the Dominican from here without doing a an all inclusive package deal is tricky. I've been looking at Bonaire, one of the Dutch Antilles islands. It's below the hurricane belt and supposed have amazing snorkelling/diving. I'm considering going back to Cuba too. It's hurricane prone, but I'd like to go to Santa Clara and see Che's grave. Santa Clara is hit less often by hurricanes than the Havana area of the island.

At my job, we earn a day and a half of sick leave for every full month worked. That time can be banked indefinately. If you get seriously ill, you need to use all your sick leave first; before we can apply for our disability insurance plan, we have to use all our leave time. So once you're out of sick leave, you have to use any vacation, special leave, long service etc that you have banked. If you're off for more than 3 consecutive days, you have to provide a doctor's note.

[Randi]

If you're off for more than 3 consecutive days, you have to provide a doctor's note.

We have to do that also, but here, your vacation can not be influenced by your sick days.

Santa Clara and seeing Che's grave sounds like a brilliant idea! Hope you can do it!